Where is your hope?

Heaven

Hello brothers and sisters. My name is James, as I am sure may of you already know. I living in Durham and training to be a priest with the Church of England, like James is. I head to learn about how different churches work, how you worship God and how to love him in different ways. I’ve been asked by James to preach this morning on the Resurrection of Lazurus this morning. It is the reading for All Saints Day.

This is the day we celebrate all the Saints who are in heaven. We are celebrating the people who in the words of St Paul ‘are with Jesus.’ Who here is looking forward to ‘being with Jesus’? Who here is looking forward to the paradise that Jesus promised to the person on the cross next to him? I’m gonna need some interaction here. Put your hands up. Thank you. That’s really helpful for me to gauge the room here. This morning I want to ask you. Where is your hope?

In this sermon that’s the question I want to ask you. I want to go through thesotry that we have just heard, with a quick bit of background and then ask you that question again. Where is your hope? Let’s look at what was happening in this story.

Jesus is told that his friend Lazurus is dying. He is deathly ill. Jesus is told to rush over. But he doesn’t. He holds back deliberatly. He knows something else is going to happen, he know what he is going to do. Jesus then arrives a few days later. He finds out that Lazurus is dead. Martha comes to him. But she does not come as others come to him later, she comes with the hope of something else, she comes believing that the ressurection happens and might be able to happen now.

Then Jesus meets Mary. Do you remember how their stories where the other way round when Jesus was at their house? Mary had faith and Martha did now. Here Jesus is sad at Lazurus’ death but he is also cross with Mary. You see, Mary trusted that Lazurus was one of the people. Like we do know Mary wept as he died, yet unlike Martha she does not expecct what is going to happen next. Then you heard what happens next. A dead guy gets out of his tomb and walks out. We aren’t thinking about some kind of Adam’s family joke, or Walking dead moment. We are thinking about a real life, resurrected human being. Like Jesus would be later, though a little differently.

Resurrection and New Creation

So where is your hope? This might seem a little odd what I am going to talk about but, as I asked about earlier, many of us hope for a future in heaven. When we die, we are looking forward to heaven. The Israelites hoped to be with their forfathers when they died, like we do. But we have lost the faith that Martha has here and are instead like Mary. Rather that hoping for heaven. We should be hoping for the even better thing that Jesus gave us. We should be hoping for the resurrection. I mean don’t get me wrong, I think heaven is gonna be great. But the new creation. Oh my goodness. We won’t just be with Jesus. We won’t just be spiritually present with God. We will actually dwell with him.

I find this a lot to think about. so I’ve tried to come up with an anology that might help us a little to see how big the difference is.

There once was a son who wanted to learn to drive. He parents promised him that if he learnt they would pay for his test. So he started. He went out and he got a job to pay for the lessons. He carefully listened to the instrictor. He followed every lesson that was given to him. Over time he got better and better. His parents found a cheap second hand car for him to practise with. they took him for test drives. Then, when he was ready to take the test. His parents paid for it. They honoured their promise. He stayed up all nighto worrying. He’d practised so long for this, woud he get there, would it go well? They drove him to the test site. It went so well. Infact he even enjoyed it. He passed and his was so happy! Then as he came out the test centre. His parents weren’t by their car. He looked around and there on the other side of the car park they were standing next to a brand new car. Confused he went over and as he did they handed over to him the keys. They said that he had worked so hard with the old one, that he had cared for it so dearly that they knew that he would care for this one too.

This story might not seem like it has much to do with heaven and the Resurrection. I want you to come with me for a moment. You see the son was focusing on the preparation and what he saw as the end goal. He was focused on passing the test but had no thought about what he was going to do after. Taking the test and learning to drive was his focus. He had forgotten the point of learning to drive. Which is to have a car so you can drive.

I think many of us are the son in this story. We have focused on heaven to the extent we have forgotten about what comes after. There is something even more glorious coming. A new heaven and a new earth.

Your Body Matters/The Physical Matters

But what’s the point of all this. What is the point of everything that I have been saying? Why does it matter where your hope it? Why does it matter what we are looking foward to. Well the first is this: That if we hope for the end goal, then we are missing out on what comes afterwards. The second is this. That because of the resurrection this world matters. It seems strange saying that after what we just heard from the first reading doesn’t it. It seems strange to talk about how this world matters if we have a new one coming. If we get to cast this physical world aside, go to be spirits and then come back to a new earth then why does this one matter? Well, it matters because our physical bodies matter. In a letter his letters Paul rebukes the church for not caring about this world. Paul rebukes them for not caring about their bodies. They’d stopped caring about them because they thought that they would get to cast it all away. That the physical world was evil. So they slept with prositutes, they got drunk, they didn’t care about the people around them, why? Because this world didn’t matter. because they were hoping for a Spiritual life in heaven where everthing would be perfect.

We to have this problem. Unlike the son in the story I told, we don’t care for this physical world. We are like the church Paul was writting to. We have placed our hope in heaven rather than in the resurrection. Like the church in Corinth we need to change, not only where our hope is - as it is so much better - but also how we live. If this world matters then we need to be like the son in the story that I told. We need to care for what we have now, for the reward later.

So how can we care for the metaphorical car like the son did. Well maybe we can start by caring for the car that we all live in. We can care for this world. At the moment the leaders of the world are meeting to talk about how we can change the course of our actions. One of the things that we are doing is to extract more that we need from the world in which we live. We daily use more than we need. Jesus, our Lord, calls us to live simple lives. The gospels tell us is we have two coats to give to those who have none. What this week, can you lay aisde? What can you buy less of? Maybe change your cleaning products to something that is more environmentally friendly. But this week, car for the car like the son did because one day we will receive a new one. Where is your hope? It is in the resurrection.